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Tutorial
This tutorial will help guide you through tank setup, adam generation, and other factors that can affect your critters. Menus The function keys toggle Critterding's various menus and status windows. *F1: Displays the World/ Engine Operations window (a list of basic commands and keyboard shortcuts). *F2: Displays frames per second, number of critters currently in the tank, and current and total food totals. *F3: Displays brain and body statistics. *F4: Displays recent mutations and histories. *F5: Displays a graph comparison of food:critters over time. *F6: Displays the menu for tank operations, general critter and food attributes, and body settings. *F7: Displays the menu for brain settings. *F9: Decrease body mutation rate by 1%. *F10: Increase body mutation rate by 1%. *F11: Decrease brain mutation rate by 1%. *F12: Increase brain mutation rate by 1%. Terminology *Adam: The first generation of a specific critter. Adam parameters are defined by the atbuildtime ''variables in the f6 and f7 menus. *Body: The main body mass of a critter. Bodies are measured by how many parts (polyhedrals) they are made of. Adams must have at least one body part, but successive generations can have from zero to one million body parts. *Color mode: If color mode is off (default) successive generations may mutate different colors than their parent. If color mode is on, successive generations of genetically identical critters will always remain the same color. *Distance from adam: This indicates how many generations separate the current critter from its adam. *Energy: All critters and food cubes contain energy, expressed as a number. Critters lose energy simply by living, and typically leech energy from food cubes to gain energy. If the ''enableomnivores ''flag is on (default) critters can parasitize each other for energy. When a critter reaches 0 energy it dies. *Food cube: The green cubes that fall from the sky. Food cubes are usually critters' primary food source. Food cubes do not lose energy by simply existing, but they disappear after a set amount of time. *Frame: Time in Critterding is expressed in rendering frames. Critters and food cubes die or disappear after a set number of frames. The L key toggles an imposed rendering limit of 30 frames per second. *Head: A critter's feeding part. Heads are always bright red, regardless of a critter's body color. A critter's head must come in contact with another energy source for the critter to feed. *Tank: The enclosed environment the critters live in. It is possible to throw critters or food cubes over the edge of the tank; if this happens the object is inaccessible until it dies or disappears. Critters may also escape over the wall of the tank on occasion; if they fall off the outer edge they cannot be retrieved. Tank size can be changed with the ''worldsizeX ''and ''worldsizeY vaiables in the F6 menu. Linux version Someone with the Lunix version tell us how to work it. If you run Ubuntu, simply do this: sudo apt-get install critterding On my system it installed under the 'Science' menu in the app menu. Or just launch from a terminal window. I just downloaded it using standart unbuntu package installer and it came up running, no problem I am wondering how I can jusgt start with just one adam(?) and learn from there how to control, especially brain activity. Any one know?-- Triad 5/23/12 You can find out how by typing this which will give you information on all the settings/ command line options: man critterding